geoffrobinson.info

The divergent patterns of swing across the states at the 2010 election attracted much comment. How variable was the swing? 2010 showed the highest level of variability in the Labor vote across the states since 1949 at least and perhaps the highest since 1931. I have developed a measure of the variance in the 2PP Labor vote across the states since 1949 (I have excluded territories because their votes were not included until the 1960s). My measure is based on the average of the 2PP labor vote across the states divided by the Standard Deviation. I have then taken this figure for each election and converted it to an index of variability: the percentage of the average of this figure across 1949-2010. The result is below. Noteworthy that variance increased during the Howard years, what does this mean? A quick review of pre-1949 figures suggests that the 2010 election may have been the most state divergent outcome since 1931.